Lady Death
by Scimitarmoon
Summary: The last monologue of Lady Deathstryke, enslaved, forgotten and utterley alone. Featuring a gruesome twist. Please do review!


Summary: Lady Deathstryke's last monologue. Disclaimer, disclaimer, nothing to warn about really.

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I am trapped in my own body.

I am his slave, bound so tightly by his chemical-chains that I can't even feel. The shackled slaves stacked in ships which swam merrily around the world as if they were carrying sacks of corn not so long ago were more free than I. Their thoughts were there own, but I could not think without order. I dwelt upon my task, and then I, an unthinking automaton reported back to the Senator for more orders.

The Senator uses all his freedom of thought to hate, I know this is not uncommon, but there is something special about his own particular brand of hate; it is one thing for a vigilante to put a bullet in someone's head because they hate mutants, but is something entirely different and more vile to enslave your own child so completely.

I've seen him, hooked up to a drip in a wheelchair. He can't think at all, and I believe he hasn't thought in years, his father removed his serum-gland to make slaves of mutants, and while he was at it I'm sure he had his brains scrambled for good measure. When the drug begins to wear off, and in my cell I start to feel again I wretch at the memory of cold, ruthless Stryker. My cell is part of an underground complex which is heavily fortified and impenetrable, and there is no chance of escape, but I claw at the walls anyway: I do not waste my freedom doing nothing.

If a subject is kept under the influence of the serum for too many weeks with respite, they become permanently paralysed and eventually, will not even breathe without a direct order. Stryker gets tired of saying 'breathe in, breathe out' so naturally their death is swift and as painful as I imagine it is to suffocate. This is why, once a week I walked obediently into this cell and have my body returned to me, and I am free to shout and scream and hate as much as I like.

I remember a man with a red-tinted visor, he followed Stryker around like a good little soldier. He wasn't here for very long, he did not have the operunity to comtemplate the completeness of his subjugation. His programming was 'simple mercenary', in that sense, I suppose he was lucky. I don't know what happened to him in the end, whether he is now in freedom or death does not matter, both are preferable to _this. _My programming has been complex, gruelling. I have also had the honour of being hacked open and having molten metal poured over my naked bones. _I _know the meaning of agony. If I was saved and became my own self again, I don't know how sane I would be. If at all.

A few other slaves to Stryker's voice came and went, and I don't strive to remember them, but there is one other like me who was here for a very long time for intensive programming. He was been sent off to his mission, he executed with such skill and force that was nothing less than spectacular, and it was wonderfully cut short when the serum wore off and he made a dash for freedom. Good for him. I don't think he remembered me and he certainly wouldn't have returned for me, but still, good for him! I hope he doesn't remember the virtual torture Stryker inflicted upon him (even though _he _didn't get sliced to pieces with power saws and scalpels), he screamed for weeks as I had; the serum wasn't quite right for him and his spirit was strong, so Stryker had to resort to other equally barbaric but more gruesome means of mind control.

I remember watching Stryker's men work on the poor fellow, indifferent to human suffering and indeed anything unrelated to my instructions. He howled and ranted in a language I didn't understand as they stuck various cruel instruments into him. They were indifferent too, but they were free. They made conversation and gossiped inanely about things like American Idol as if they were doing something as mundane cutting into a slice of meat. And this country is so proud of its civility. If only they knew what their own leaders get up to when all lights go out, the cruel, barbaric things they do to people they decide aren't 'people' at all.

I only spoke to him once. Stryker's men had him permanently pumped up with a potent cocktail of drugs because he's a teleporter. He had a tail, too, but that doesn't seem relevent enough to me to even think about. I prayed that one day they'd forget one of the drugs, or they wouldn't give him enough but they always did. They were very precise, like all good scientists, but he must have started to build up an immunity.

One day, I heard a thin voice say "who's there?"

I pressed my ear to the metal flap on my door and waited with baited breath for the voice to sound again.

"Is there anybody there?" His voice was thick with a European accent which obscured the words and confused me.

"Hello!" I called back, trying to hide my desperation, "I'm here!"

"Who are you?"

I didn't understand, "sorry?"

"Who…who are you?"

Oh. "I am Yuriko"

"Sorry?"

"Yuriko. That's my name." I wonder briefly if he couldn't understand me, with English as my second language either.

"That's an interesting name, where are you from, Yuriko?" He replied, his voice beginning to waver.

Should I tell him? Did it matter? I didn't doubt the authenticity of the stranger, he was surely not a spy planted to pluck information out of me, Stryker already new everything about me, because I had already told him. "I am from Japan." I said at last. "What's you name?"

"Kurt. I'm from Germany." He answered, taking more care with his diction. "Are you…did I see you before, when they were doing things?"

"Yes. I am enslaved to Stryker's serum. When he uses it on me I am not Yuriko any more, I am Lady Deathstrike his puppet."

"He wants me to be his puppet too. That's why he took me. What are they going to make us do?"

"Whatever he likes." I said grimly. "I would rather die than look at him again." I gazed at my finger tips and watched silver claws slide out from what used to be my nail beds. I laughed dryly. "But I can't."

"I'd rather escape. Perhaps it is worse than to be dead, but not worse than dying." Kurt said. His wisdom reminded me of my father.

"It's nice to have someone to talk to," I said, "I've been alone all these months. I'd rather escape myself, too, but that seems equally as impossible. You shouldn't be awake, but you are, isn't it possible for you to teleport?"

"If I understand what you mean, no. I've been trying to, but nothing happens." He sighed deeply.

The door at the end of the corridor breezed open and footsteps clicked towards me. They must have heard us. The footsteps stopped just short of my cell and another door opened. Kurt moaned a protestation in his own language and then fell silent.

I was alone again. And I would be alone forever.

Time passed, how much does not matter, and I have done everything he told me to do. My thoughts bent to his will. But in the short hours I secretly reveled in the freedom that my brief friend certainly enjoyed. Often I closed my eyes and pretended it was me who escaped, not him.

One day, I received my final orders. Mutants like me came to rescue one of there own, to stop Stryker's master plan. I know they would have saved me too if the serum did not make me their enemy. I followed Stryker. He took me too the room where he, like Dr Frankenstein remoulded my body and made me super human. A man stood, staring into the sickly green tank, consumed by his own thoughts. He was rough looking like someone battered quite badly by the ravages of time, but at the same time ageless, and he was one of the invaders.

I don't even know who he is, but when I saw the blades slide from his knuckles I knew the triple-blade slash marks on the pillar belonged to him. I knew he was my predecessor and we should have been comrades, but I had orders.

He was stronger but I was agile. And neither of us could die. We fought with such intensity, I remember my heart racing, driving my claws into him again and again and not thinking on anything but my orders _kill him _but I had to keep going, and going until my orders were fulfilled or it was physically impossible for me to do so, so I did. We would have gone on fighting until the trumpets sounded, but he fought dirty. Suddenly he impaled me, and I felt searing molten metal blossom inside me, burning, drowning me in the same liquid that gave me my strength. He won and the serum began to lose its grasp on me as I sank to the bottom of the tank which made me.

Then singing pain. Then crushing water.

And here I lie, my body regenerating itself faster than it can decompose. I cannot breathe, I cannot even respire. It is like a living death in which I cannot move, my senses are gone and my body is a coffin. I cannot escape this hell and no one will come to save me.

But at least my thoughts are my own.


End file.
